This will be the final competition by which the JSF will determine who to send to the ISU Championships and the Olympic Games.
It will be announced about an hour after the Ladies' podium ceremony, from 21:00 JST.

The criteria of JSF in sending skaters to Olympics and Worlds:

Originally Posted by sorcerer

1. the skater reaching the highest among the Japanese on the GPF podium (not off the podium) of each discipline, this under the condition that the skater competes in the Nationals.
<Miki and Nobu already locked, unless they pull pull out of Nats>

2. the winner of the Japanese Nationals.
<If Miki and/or Nobu wins the Nats, it will be criterion #3 below applied to the 2nd place finisher, no automatic slot for him/her.>

3. selected from
(A) the podium finishers at Nationals,
(B) GP Finalists, and
(C) the top three Japanese ISU rankers at the time of Nationals;
determined under thorough considerations.

It says this criterion "3" in particular is primarily for Oly Games and that the slot(s) for the Worlds determined by this "3" might differ from the Olys, which is to give chances to runner ups.

Akiko Suzuki already satisfies 3(B) and 3(C) so she is at the moment the closest to the Oly games aside from Miki in this system, literal-wise.

But of course Mao who satisfies 3(C) and who happens to have a god chance for the automatic criterion "2" is the strongest bet among those chasing the 2 slots left for the Japanese ladies.

ETA:
If Miki/Nobu wins Nats, the other 2 ladies/men sent to Worlds will possibly be different from those sent to Olys, especially the ladies.

Among those who wish to go, the JSF will in principle pick the skaters from the highest finishers in the Nats downward, however they will also take into account how they skated here, as well as how they did this season in the international games, and also the blance of skaters' opportunities.

Thanks, thanks sorcerer Very appreciated information This event will bring some excitement to the pretty boring christmas holiday. So I take it you don't celebrate christmas in Japan? Anyone doing pbp? Online TV?

The japanese letters/signs are beautiful, but I don't understand any of them. Which one is Oda in the men's entries? This sign is often used: 大 What does it mean? Looks like a man.

It's hard to pick favorites from Japan going to Vancouver. Whoever comes to the olympics will be fine with me, but I have a soft spot for Fumie.

Among those who wish to go, the JSF will in principle pick the skaters from the highest finishers in the Nats downward, however they will also take into account how they skated here, as well as how they did this season in the international games, and also the blance of skaters' opportunities.

Thanks, sorcerer! Ryo Shibata, Naoto Saito and Akio Sasaki are the Senior men that placed 1-3 at Eastern Sectionals, while the top 3 ladies there were Shion Kokubun (Golden Spin ladies' winner this past weekend), Ayako Hagiwara and Misaki Ohara(?).

I'm wondering why the top 3 finishers at the Western Sectional are not included on this list or were they just accidently left out of the above post? Tatsuki Machida (1st), Takemochi Ogami (2nd), not sure who was 3rd in Senior men, and ladies Satsuki Muramoto (1st), Ayumi Goto (2nd) and Aki Sawada (3rd).